China’s Secret Gambling Problem

Ma Honggang was once a legend in the secretive, twilight world of China’s high-stakes gamblers.

Moving from city to city, he spent countless nights around card tables in the smoke-filled apartments that act as secret casinos in a country where gambling is illegal and regarded by the authorities as a serious social evil.

Now he has embarked on a different career: persuading China’s growing army of illegal gamblers to think again about what to many has become a destructive addiction.

“I’d play with criminals, although I don’t want to say what they did, as well as rich businessmen and officials,” said Mr Ma.